Lily Pond fish died from low oxygen levels

YOUNGSTOWN — Water tests conducted by Youngstown State University confirmed it was low oxygen levels that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of fish in July at the Lily Pond in Mill Creek Park.

The diluted oxygen levels were caused by a variety of factors, said Kirsten Peetz, natural-resource manager for Mill Creek MetroParks. The first was that weather had been hot, in the upper 80s or low 90s for a week.

“The heat was then

followed by a very hard rainstorm that mixed with the pond and further diluted the dissolved oxygen levels,” she said at a MetroParks board meeting tonight. “It was literally a perfect storm of conditions” for the fish kill.

Shallow ponds are more susceptible to reduced oxygen levels from heat, and despite the fact the Lily Pond is fairly large — it covers more than 3 acres — it is no more than 5 feet deep, Peetz said.